King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia on Friday presided over the solemn session of parliament commemorating the bicentennial institution of the Parliament of 1810, held at the Real Teatro de las Cortes in the town of San Fernando, in southern Spain.
In a speech King Juan Carlos said that the 'seed of freedom' born in this city two centuries earlier had inspired the fathers of the current Constitution, which provides Spain with its 'longest period of stability and prosperity in freedom. "
The representatives who gathered at Cádiz were far more liberal than the elite of Spain taken as a whole, and they produced a document far more liberal than might have been produced in Spain were it not for the war. Few of the most conservative voices were at Cádiz, and there was no effective communication with King Ferdinand, who was a virtual prisoner in France. Ferdinand abolsihed the Constitution immediately upon his return in 1814. GPD © AP More on the 'Constitution of 1812'
Spain's King Juan Carlos, right, talks to parliamentary speaker Jose Bono, left, during a ceremony to celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of the first session of Cadiz's bicameral parliament, known as "Cortes de Cadiz" in San Fernando, southern Spain, on Friday, Sept. 24, 2010. Cadiz's Cortes elaborated Spain's first Constitution in 1812.
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